Monday, September 28, 2015

Blood Moon & the UFO

The last 24 hours have been pretty special, I think... Today we learned that NASA has found indications that liquid water flows on the surface of Mars, and last night we were treated to the spectacle of a "supermoon" lunar eclipse. That's an astronomical grand slam if there ever was one!

I'll write more about the Mars news in coming days, but today it's all about the moon. Last night I got my beautiful Orion XT8 telescope out into the driveway just as the moon was appearing over the roof of the house and the first sliver of shadow was appearing on its left side. For the next hour I kept the scope on the moon as the shadow spread across its face, and my wife would come out periodically to get looks when she could tear herself away from her baking.

Do UFOs come out under the cover of the blood moon?

After a while I noticed something amazing... If I looked very closely around the edge of the moon on the "bloody" shadow side, I could see tiny distant stars hovering closeby. Under normal viewing conditions, of course, these stars would be invisible, drowned out by the light of the moon, or untraceable in the presence of a new moon. But last night I saw one only a little ways away from the disc of the moon, and as I watched it "setting" behind the sun I was surprised when it just blinked out. For some reason I expected a gradual fade-out, but the moon doesn't have an atmosphere, so... it just winked out instantaneously. Or had I just blinked and missed the fade-out? I was so puzzled by this that I waited and watched another star disappear behind the moon, and this time there was no mistake: it reached the edge of the moon and ceased to exist... Really makes you appreciate how fast the moon is actually moving.

But then something just as odd happened. I looked up and saw an aircraft in the sky above me, moving from NW to SE, and it struck me as particularly unusual... What I saw were three bright white lights in a chevron formation, with a red flashing light somewhere towards the front. Nothing strange about that; they were definitely aircraft lights. It was moving at a very leisurely pace, and it had to be very low in the sky, because it was about the size of a golf ball held at arm's length.

But here's the weird thing: It didn't make a sound.

It was a very quiet night, and I live in a very quiet neighborhood. We get planes overhead all the time, and they always make noise. But this one last night didn't make a sound...

I am at a complete loss to explain it. So far as I could tell it never deviated from its course or elevation... It just cruised silently along until I lost sight of it through the trees. And, of course, my wife missed it.

Even if I had been able to swing the telescope and sight the object in time, I wouldn't have seen anything helpful.

I'm intrigued by the drone hypothesis, but I still have doubts. This thing stayed in a straight line the whole time I watched it, and it had to be a half-mile away before it disappeared behind the trees. Whoever was piloting it had a very steady hand...

It fits the description of the Black Triangles, silent, low, and steady flight. Lighting configurations seem to vary. The one I saw had 9 lights altogether. 5 that formed the leading edge of the chevron and 4 in a square directly behind the triangle. It would've been barely covered with an unfolded newspaper at arms length. Completely silent and absolutely no pitch, yaw or roll. Estimated height was about 200 feet or less using the height of the nearby trees it flew over as a gauge. Very strange indeed.

I just wanted to add to the description, lights were all white and not blinking. They were bright but not blinding. The strangest thing was they didn't project light, they didn't light up the tops of the trees as they passed over nor the hood of my car as lights that bright should have. Speed was school zone speed, think being at a stop sign and watching cars pass in a school zone.